Photo Gallery: Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

Troll Castle

Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie

Explorers may have sighted Queen Maud Land’s coast in 1820, but its grand mountains, such as the Troll Castle [pictured] remained unknown until 1939, when Germans made aerial photos. Today the region’s virgin peaks and otherworldly terrain exert a magnetic pull on top climbers [such as the six-person expedition, covered in this gallery, who summitted never before scaled peaks].

The Jaw of Fenris

Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie

"Anywhere else on Earth these peaks would be a national park," says [photographer] Gordon [Wiltsie] of the crags of Fenriskjeften—'the Jaw of Fenris' in Norwegian. Evoking a row of flesh-tearing teeth, they get their telling name from a fierce wolf in Norse myth.

Ratcheting Up Rakekniven

Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie

With nothing but empty air beneath his boots, Conrad Anker ratchets himself up Rakekniven using a rope-ascending device. Anchored ropes left in place provided a shortcut for going up and down the mountain—plus a lifeline to the ground should a sudden storm threaten to trap the team on the exposed wall.